Tableau, Copenhagen

About the Project

David Thulstrup has turned flower selling into an art form, creating a theatrical and dramatic retail space for TABLEAU in an atmospheric gallery-style space in a 19th century building in the heart of Copenhagen. TABLEAU is the brainchild of Julius Værnes Iversen who runs Copenhagen’s popular BB Blomster flower stores with his brother Magnus.

Iversen gave Thulstrup a freehand to design the gallery-like interior and everything in it including architectural podiums in single materials such as terrazzo, glass bricks, and polished metal profiles for staging floral arrangements like art installations. The podiums sit on a bright blue vinyl floor, which is a foil for their architectural shapes and the rawness of the walls. The floor is reflected in specially designed LED luminaires in a mirrored metal finish that appear to float on the ceiling. Custom-designed counters are made with galvanised metal. A growth rack for potted plants that doubles as a light sculpture was Thulstrup’s creative solution to Iversen’s practical desire to use the rear of the space to display potted plants. During the day the light irradiates as a cool white while overnight it becomes an edgy pink-purple light, which enables the plants to grow but also adds a sort of disco feel when the store is closed.

In keeping with TABLEAU’S theatrical theme walls and ceilings were stripped back to expose raw concrete but retain old wallpapers and textures as a way of celebrating the layered history of the space.

What’s unique about it

With the increasing use of social media, Thulstrup feels there is a shift in the way people communicate and thus a shift in design and how people want to experience things like fashion and flowers in curated spaces, viewing them as art, not just as merchandise. Additionally, Thulstrup thinks people are currently more drawn to nature and the intimacy of being in contact with living things because we are ‘online’ almost all the time.

Working within these current shifts, Thulstrup wished for the customer to experience the flowers instead of just going in to buy them. When entering the store, one is greeted with a massive flower table centered in the middle of the room creating a natural flow and circulation for a more flexible and user-friendly experience. All the tableaux are fitted along the walls, making it easy to walk around and view the flowers on display. Since the concept of TABLEAU is inspired by gallery-spaces, Thulstrup wanted to create a flexible space, where the furniture could be adjusted – like the flower tables can be transformed into a bar or dinner table to host events and parties. The custom-designed tableaux and furniture were designed with clean lines and simple materials such as stone, glass, led light, and metal to contrast the natural warmth and colorful textures of the flowers, and the growth rack in the rear of the space was an alternative way of showing potted plants instead of shelves on the wall.